Now that we know what AI is and its benefits for finance, how can a CFO develop a plan around how to apply it in their business? To borrow a phrase from Stephen Covey, Begin with the end in mind. Visualize where you want to be and work backwards, considering what is preventing you from realizing your future today. This step will help prevent you from building AI around current systems and processes that are encumbering your digital transformation.

The next step in identifying where to invest in AI is to summarize the outputs your team creates for the company’s stakeholders. Define output as anything your team delivers to a stakeholder that they use. Examples of outputs include; invoices to customers, financial reports to management, pay checks/stubs to employees, borrowing base to the bank, work papers to the auditor, KPIs to the Board of Directors, credit information requests from vendors, accounts receivable aging report to the credit department, new project investment analysis for the CEO, productivity reports for the COO, etc.

​To be highly effective the implementation of AI is a multi-discipline exercise that will require resources from many parts of the business. A good example of this can be illustrated when using AI to assist in auto invoicing and payment applications. The sales department, manufacturing and shipping departments will provide data that allows these two functions to operate autonomously. The data from these departments will be incorporated into algorithms that function to determine how much, when and to whom to send an invoice; and, how to apply payments when the bank reports them as received.

​ Below are some important criteria to think about when selecting where to apply AI:

​Measuring the (financial) benefits of an investment in AI for a business

​Just like any other business case development, it is important to measure the benefits of investing in AI technology. These benefits are either tangible or intangible. Tangible benefits are those that can easily be quantified, you can put a value against. On the other hand, intangible benefits are difficult to quantify, but expected to occur as a result of the investment.

​So, is one set of benefits better than the other? Our answer is no. Both tangible and intangible benefits are important. But only tangible benefits can be used to calculate the financial return of AI investment. This can be looked at from the perspective of additional savings or income generated as a result of AI.

​However, the challenge for many CFOs when it comes to implementing new technological solutions for their companies is clearly defining how success will be measured and quantifying the ROI.

​Since the adoption of AI technologies is not yet widespread but still in the pilot phase we suggest CFOs take a simplified approach to calculating the value of AI projects and follow these steps:

​1. Identify a specific problem. Although AI is promising to be a huge game changer for your business, AI is not the answer to all your business problems. Don’t fall into the trap of investing in AI for the sake of investing, or worse, succumb to “herd mentality”. To successfully benefit from AI, first identify a specific problem that may be solved though AI. The AI Identification Worksheet discussed earlier can help you here.

​2. Define the outcomes. What will success look like in your company? What is the result you are targeting, and can this be defined in monetary or percentage values?

​3. Measure the results. After clearly defining the outcomes, the next step is estimating the performance of AI against your baseline measurements or outcomes. The spread between your expected performance and the baseline provides with the expected benefits of the proposed AI solution. Put in place a system to measure the actual results

4. Identify and calculate the costs (investment) incurred in delivering the results. Here you need to consider things like initial investment costs, ongoing support costs and the impact on cash flow.

​5. Calculate the return on investment (ROI). This final step involves calculating the ratio of money gained (or lost) relative to the amount of money invested (the total cost). If the projected ROI meets your hurdle rate, you’ll move ahead with the project. Set up to schedule to review the actual performance vs. the expected results to develop the feedback loop to improve your investment model.

Below is an example of calculating the ROI using the steps above:

​1. Identifying a specific problem: ABC Company P2P process is highly manual and incurs annual labor costs of $300,000. During a cost and profitability analysis exercise, Brenda, the company’s CFO established that due to high error rates and rework as a result of these manual processes, the company is incurring additional overhead costs of $100,000 per annum. She remembered that from one of the CFO conferences she attended, the speaker spoke about AI and the technologies potential to drive process efficiencies. She proposes to the Board that the company invests in AI, specifically for improving P2P and test the concept.

​2. Defining the outcomes: After a series of meetings with various functional leaders, stakeholders and consideration of various factors, Brenda presents to the board her findings. By piloting AI for the P2P function, the company stands to achieve annual labor cost reduction of 10% and overhead reduction of 15%. The Board approves the project, expecting savings of $45,000 excluding the potential benefits from higher accuracy and improved vendor relations.

After conducting a thorough market analysis of the suitable AI solutions available, with the support of the Board, Brenda engaged the services of FinancePro, a cloud-based software provider specializing in AI software for the CFO office.

​3. Measuring the results: After conducting a thorough market analysis of the suitable AI solutions available, with the support of the Board, Brenda engaged the services of FinancePro, a cloud-based software provider specializing in AI software for the CFO office. It is now 12 months since the pilot project went live and the Board wants to know if the company managed to achieve the 10% labor cost and 15% overhead cost reduction targets. Brenda compares last years’ costs against current years’ costs and her targets of 10% and 15% cost reductions have been met. In year 2, the company estimated benefits of $60,000.

​4. Identify and calculate the costs (investment) incurred in delivering the results: Although the cost reduction targets have been met, Brenda believes that these figures evaluated in isolation are not helpful for evaluating the overall investment. She therefore decides to identify and calculate the total cost ABC Company incurred in meeting these targets. She takes into account all initial costs such as license fees of the new AI software, implementation costs and employee training costs for the full amount of $30,000. She also calculates ongoing costs such as maintenance and support, communications and data storage costs which amounted to $20,000.

​5. Calculate the return on investment (ROI): This is calculated as follows

​ • She uses a cash on cash analysis to determine the 2-year ROI:

​In this example, ROI is calculated by taking the total financial benefits ($105,000) subtracting the total financial costs ($70,000), dividing by the total financial costs then multiplying by 100 to arrive at the ROI (50%). This calculation is over a 2-year period but can be applied on an annual basis as well. We have developed a simple model to help you summarize and compare your AI projects. Use it to:

​ Analyze and select AI projects,

​ Get your executive team familiar with the financial benefits of AI and,

​ As a performance measurement and improvement tool once an AI project has started.